It's been four months since he died and he still can't look at his Hellfire Club t-shirt without tears prickling behind his eyes. It's just a shirt, it shouldn't be so hard to just turn his head and then turn away. Plus, boys like him, don't cry. Boys never cry. For Dustin, however, it's like a slap in the face. A repeating, echoing one.

The town were still haunted by Eddie. Just not in the same way Dustin was. For them, Eddie was a horrific symbol of what kids shouldn't become, what parents should use as a tool to scare them, indoctrinate them, his name thrown about town with venom and spite and hatred.

Dustin however, didn't see a demon like they did. Dustin had seen the best in Eddie, all the way down to his bones, literally, as he lay there dying in his arms. He'd seen it before that as well, but only when he lost him did the hole that he filled along with Steve become a little less full than it used to be for him.

The place he'd taken up, over the months in the year that the town had started becoming fucking nuts, just felt achy, no matter what he tried to do to distract himself. Talking with Suzie when he could (which for some reason was becoming less and less), hanging out with his hometown friends (who seemingly had forgotten since Vecna and the earthquake and the gates and why in the fuck were there gates!?) and just generally passing the time.

No matter the place, Eddie was always in the back of his mind. It's like he could still see him, jacket and all, every place he ended up. The cinema, the mall, school, his mother's car even. A ghost within a practical ghost town.

He still visits his uncle, Wayne, sometimes. Helps him out with the stuff Eddie's no longer here for that an old man can't really do despite his best. He knows it gives him someone to talk to and deep down, Dustin knows the reason he's doing it is to feel less guilt. Wayne never knew how his nephew died. He most likely assumes that he died in the earthquake and not a thousand feet down in a bloody pile of zombie bats.

He doesn't even know if Wayne asked to see his body at the hospital or tried to find it when they did have it, but he knows that whatever the answer, it doesn't matter. It doesn't bring Eddie back.

Dustin has a place, however, that he knows Eddie is. Or at least, he likes to think that. The edge of the forest, where the shadows meet at sunset. It's exactly where Eddie would be and he goes there every afternoon to pay respects because damn it, he's a fucking hero to him. His guitar, a Warlock (or so Eddie had told him once) that played the last notes of Eddie's life, stood proudly stabbed into the ground, withered with his blood and rusted down from being in the elements despite the shade the trees attempted to provide, a makeshift gravestone for a body that was buried further than 6 foot under and a shrine to what once was.

He does the same thing every day here. Stands pathetically at the base, cleans off all the graffiti and eggs and pentagrams and whatever else as talks about his day, rolls a dice and makes a joke about the chance of Eddie coming back that day, even when it's a Nat 20, that just falls on silent ears and the sounds of birds and wind.

He knows he's screwed up when he doesn't care about that. He's been screwed up ever since Eddie told him he loved him. His own mother told him she loved him and hit's never felt this way before. His friends and Suzie, of course, all of them say they love him, but it's still not the same as when Eddie did. None held the same weight, same finality, same impact, same…correctness.

He's been so confused and he knows he'll never get an answer as to why it hurts so much. Not anymore. The person who can give him the answers is dead for God's sake and being used for feeding Demobats and Demogorgans in the bottom of some deep, dark pit. He tries not to vomit at how heartless that description sounds while he's talking about matters of the heart itself. It sucks. Everything fucking sucks. He also tells Eddie that, every day, when he doesn't suddenly rise up from the guitar grave shrine thing.

It doesn't have the effect he really hopes it would. It just seems to make everything more depressed, if he's honest. A 14-year-old shouldn't really be depressed. But then again, a 14-year-old shouldn't be feeling survivor's guilt either. He's just so…confused. Permanently. He had so many questions and no answers. Or at least, none that made any more sense than the initial statement did. He supposes he'll never know the truth. Not in this lifetime.

So for now, heart still heavy, Dustin smiles and plucks a string, letting the sound ring out into the woods as the sun starts slipping behind a veil of descending clouds and imagining that it's Eddie playing something softer than Metalica, the pick hanging from Wayne's doorbell gliding though his hands like silk as the noise hums, muffling his ears in a comforting way as he mounts his bicycle and rides back of into Hawkins, the middle of nowhere.

He hopes Eddie is waiting for him, not upside down and on the other side.